


Numina

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BDSM, Breathplay, Dark, Knifeplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:58:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had never really been one for the path of least resistance, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jomk](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jomk).



> Written for [jomk](http://jomk.livejournal.com)'s [help_nz](http://community.livejournal.com/help_nz) auction bid.
> 
> Thanks to [misanthropyray](http://misanthropyray.livejournal.com) and [emmessann](http://emmessann.livejournal.com/) for the betas, and to [gelishan](http://gelishan.livejournal.com) and [Ivy Blossom](http://ivyblossom.livejournal.com) for many readthroughs and moral support! Remaining errors are 100% my own.

There were lots of ways to hurt. John knew that. Had always known that, though he’d been reminded of it recently.

Lots of ways to feel it, lots of ways to cause it. Both of those. He’d been both blade and shield, wielded a scalpel and stopped a bullet. He’d caused pain in order to heal, inflicted it deliberately, prevented it altogether.

Sherlock was so careful with himself, normally. Not with his safety—not at all, never that—but with his _presentation_ , wrapping his carefully-constructed persona around himself as though its density alone could hold him together. _The frailty of genius_ , he’d said, and Sherlock was nothing if not conscious of his audience.

But it was John watching, now, and what John was coming to understand was something that had eluded even the great Sherlock Holmes: that Sherlock—arrogant Sherlock, who always thought himself in charge—belonged to John.

Duty and responsibility: two things John understood quite well.

Sherlock would come to understand it, too.

* * *

 

Sherlock couldn’t take his eyes away from the scalpel in John’s hand.

“You remember your safeword,” John said, and Sherlock felt himself nodding. “Good.” John reached out and grasped Sherlock’s long fingers in his own, wrapped them around the handle, covered them roughly with his own.

Sherlock didn’t want to, of course he didn’t. _Norbury, Norbury,_ he thought. It was on the tip of his tongue, but it made no sense to say it, not _him,_ not when John was asking, and John wouldn’t have been asking if he didn’t _need_ \--

Sherlock was sure his own hand would have been shaking if John hadn’t been steadying it with his own, drawing it inexorably toward him, toward his own right forearm. Sherlock had to shuffle forward on his knees to get the proper angle, and John leaned forward until his lips just brushed the top of Sherlock’s head.

“Good, good,” he whispered, “you’re doing so well, go on, for me,” and together they carefully pressed the blade down, felt the slight pop at the first breach of John’s skin.

That was the first time.

* * *

 

They’d discovered it by accident, when it started. A series of accidents, really, until the whole thing felt inevitable, the natural outcome of the path down which they’d followed one another.

Sherlock had swept into the flat like a storm while John was turning the heat off under a pot of rice at the stove, four days into a case that was running him ragged. He’d been working in the lab for hours; clearly he’d been unsuccessful in his experiment, and he began rifling irritably through the papers spread haphazardly on the floor by his sofa.

“No luck, then?” John asked, turning to glance over his shoulder. Sherlock wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence, sinking to the sofa and practically attacking the keys of his mobile. His eyes were ringed with dark circles that stood in contrast to his pale face; even from that distance, in the lowering evening light, John could see that his hands were shaking.

John put the spoon down and made his way over to Sherlock’s side. He didn’t know what made him do it, exactly, but he set his hand heavily on the back of Sherlock’s neck. “Stop,” he heard himself say, and it wasn’t the word so much as his _tone_ that surprised him; he hadn’t used it since his time in Afghanistan, when he needed to be heard in spite (and because) of the chaotic circumstances.

 _It won’t work here_ , he thought, at the precise moment that it _did_.

Sherlock dropped the mobile into his lap and twisted his neck to look up at John in surprise, eyes suddenly dark.

John couldn’t say what made him do it. Instinct, probably. Divine inspiration. A hundred subtle clues, all laid out intentionally or accidentally, but he hadn’t strung them together. He, after all, wasn’t the genius.

(Oh, but he _was._ )

“You need a break,” he said, tightening his grip slightly.

“I don’t—“

“Yes you do.” Sherlock’s mouth twitched briefly in indignation but he stood and moved toward the table and somehow even standing he wasn’t towering anymore. He was looking at John in amazement, like he’d never seen him before, like he was finally listening.

* * *

 

After that, things became both simpler and a great deal more complicated. John was learning to navigate their new circumstances, how to step in when Sherlock’s self-preservation instincts failed him. It felt, to John, that he’d unlocked something magical, an incantation that let him reach right inside Sherlock’s brain, past all the frantic fluttering _thinking_. A direct line to some private, primal place.

Most of the time Sherlock was his usual imperious self—sulking in the flat or swanning around London, looking down his nose at all those little people with their inadequate brains, _must be so relaxing_ —but it was as though John had found a way to turn it off, for a while, to give him a rest. A bypass.

When John put his hand on his shoulder and Sherlock fell to his knees, it had never been steadier.

* * *

It had been stupidity, pure stupidity, that led to Sherlock supporting John up the stairs to 221b. John leaned against him and swore under his breath, trying to ignore the damp, sticky feel of the blood on the back of his thigh, seeping through the leg of his trousers.

They’d been running through the city, Sherlock just a pace or two ahead with his longer legs, when the cab had come around the corner and nearly hit him. It narrowly avoided doing so by swerving at the last minute. John had jumped back in surprise and cut himself on the exposed edge of a broken signpost.

Sherlock had only run on for another street or two before he’d noticed and come back around for him. “Probably wasn’t the right man, in any case,” he’d said, wrapping John’s scarf (of _course_ John’s scarf, not his own) around John’s thigh, pulling it tight. “A&E?”

“Home,” John said, grimacing. “I can see to it, it’s not that bad.”

He couldn’t, though, as was rapidly becoming apparent. The wound was just far enough around on the right side and he was left-handed; he managed the disinfectant without difficulty, but he couldn’t quite get the needle at the proper angle and hold it anything like steady enough to do this without a local anaesthetic.

He felt Sherlock’s long fingers pressed against his own, and John turned his head to see Sherlock crouched behind him, looking up. “Let me,” he said. He took the needle from John and turned it, examining the tip closely.

“Have you, ah. _Done_ this before?”

Sherlock didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a near thing, and it soon became apparently that the upward quirk of one dark eyebrow was the only response he intended to give.

John sighed inwardly. He was tired. He, truth be told, hated hospitals, at least from the patient side of things. This—even this—was better. “Fine,” he breathed finally, “fine. I’ll talk you through it.”

And somehow it was _that_ that made Sherlock hesitate fractionally, the sharp edge of the needle not-quite puncturing the skin of John’s leg. “Hold still,” he said, voice low.

It _hurt_. It hurt a damn sight more than John was willing to admit, but there was something about the way Sherlock’s left hand pressed lightly above the gash, steadying him, the look on his face when John twisted round to check his progress, and John was finding his breath coming short.

 _Oh god, no,_ he thought, but of course he could no more control his reaction than Sherlock could, and when Sherlock finally pulled the suture taut, rejoining the last bit of his split flesh, their eyes met and it was _perfect._

John bit his lip.

“You have to tie it off,” he said after a long moment during which he was pretty sure neither of them had breathed. “There are scissors—“

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock answered, but it wasn’t annoyed. His gaze hadn’t left John’s, and the look in those pale eyes was almost… well, John would have liked to call it _reverent,_ if he thought Sherlock were capable of reverence for anything.

Sherlock was figuring it out, too, then.Or, more precisely, it seemed that he’d figured it out entirely in the space between the first stitch and the last.

Sherlock would let his fingers wander to that spot as it healed, over and over again, the purple scar slowly fading to white. He’d run his fingertips along it and John might have been imagining things but he was pretty sure the wound had started off a bit straighter than the shape it now took. He didn’t think the rebar was quite that… well, _sinuous._ Certainly not quite so suggestive of the shape of an _S_. John didn’t care, though. God, no, he couldn’t possibly have cared less, with those long fingers brushing against the same place where they had closed him up, made him whole.

* * *

 

After that, it felt like a natural progression. When Sherlock began to fray about the edges—and he was _all_ edges, really, the line between _overworked_ and _bored_ really only a hairsbreadth—John would only have to lay his hand on him and say, in that steady voice, “ _Stop._ ”

And Sherlock _would_ , would drop to his knees and look up at John with shadowed eyes. He’d wait there for as long as John wanted, the whole of his mind open and ready for the direction it needed.

And sometimes it was just that, something simple and necessary— _sleep, take a break, play your violin for me—_ but John found that sometimes the situation called for _complicated_ and necessary.

John quite liked complicated and necessary. That, after all, was how he fit in.

It was the sort of decision that didn’t feel like a decision at all. It felt like understanding. It felt like nodding, just a matter of relaxing muscles so long-clenched he no longer felt them working. It felt like giving in to gravity.

* * *

 

It occurred to Sherlock, not for the first time, how infrequently anyone ever told him what to do.

Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. People told him what to do all the time, but it was always with a resigned, fatalistic _why am I bothering_ air about their words, rendering them easily-ignored. A self-fulfilling prophecy, had he believed in prophecies.

John, though. John wasn’t prone to fatalism, in general. John dealt frankly with the world and expected to be obeyed in return, and Sherlock found he couldn’t help but fulfil that expectation, because it was _John_ — kind, familiar—and when he used that voice it was like the instruction was coming from inside Sherlock’s own mind, his thoughts manifested in the figure of a tired ex-army doctor who slotted so neatly into his life that it was as though it had been made for him in the first place. No point hiding anything from him (if it were even possible; Sherlock doubted that it was, at least in the things that mattered).

Even Sherlock could see he shouldn’t be paying too much heed to the swirling muddle of thought that constituted his own mind in this state. John’s voice did nicely as a substitute; the singularity of purpose in his words was enough.

It was temporary at best, though, and they both knew it. It was a _fix_ , the rush of endorphins a chemical like any other, and like any other its effects would dissipate and he’d be left wanting all over again. _Risk yourself,_ John demanded, but Sherlock knew he’d lost himself already (to John, certainly; to himself, soon enough, if things didn’t change. His fingers itched for the feel of a syringe between them, the satisfying pressure of the plunger as he pressed—)

Inactivity would tear him to pieces, and it had gone on too long.

* * *

 

Odd, the moments at which he hesitated, the times when his hand shook (and when it didn’t). There was nothing of hesitancy about John now, holding out his arm, assured and assuring.

“Do it,” John said, and Sherlock forced his eyes up from that steady hand to meet John’s own, clear and dark.

Sherlock didn’t want to, of course he didn’t. He never did; the first time John had had to wrap his own fingers roughly around Sherlock’s, direct them both with his own hand. Sherlock didn’t want to make him do that again. It was just a simple instruction, and he owed John that much, at least.

The scalpel was too light in his hand. It felt deceptively harmless, like a toy. But John had never asked Sherlock to hurt him irreparably before, and Sherlock didn’t see any reason not to trust him now. He laid his trust at Sherlock’s feet at moments like this. An offering, but not a free one; he’d make Sherlock earn it even as John proved it was already his.

The least Sherlock could do was return John’s trust in kind.

 _“Yes,_ ” Sherlock heard himself answer, and with that one syllable he could feel the shift within his own mind as his consciousness sharpened to a point, became one with the blade where it made contact with John’s skin, everything else falling away.

John would make him patch it up afterward—he always did, never made Sherlock damage in ways that couldn’t be made whole—but Sherlock knew what a mistake could cost, even the smallest one.

He’d risk his own life to stop being bored, but _John’s._ Yes, he’d risk that too, when John asked him, _because_ John asked him and because it was what Sherlock himself needed and Sherlock could no more deny it than he could deny the in-out pull of his lungs, drawing in air.

John scarcely even flinched as Sherlock dug the blade in and began to move it across his skin, a line of blood welling in its wake. John’s eyes fell closed and he drew in a long breath but Sherlock didn’t have the attention to spare for it. He had his challenge and he’d meet it; another step across the bridge that might, if they were lucky, get him across the chasm of time with his mind intact.

* * *

 

Then it all started to fall apart.

It wasn’t that theyfell apart, Sherlock and John, it was that _they_ suddenly weren’t enough. There was some sort of internal review going on over at the Yard—Lestrade had been sketchy on the details—and Sherlock hadn’t been called in on a case for nearly two months. He wasn’t handling it well.

He’d amused himself with his experiments for a while, then fallen into a deep and lasting sulk. Every now and again Mycroft would pop his head in, trying to tempt Sherlock with this or that project, but he usually removed himself from the flat on the heels of Sherlock’s threat to disembowel him with the violin bow ( _Really, Sherlock, so childish_ , but he left anyway).

John would catch Sherlock lying on the sofa in his dressing gown, fingers playing with the skin on the inside of his left elbow, across the tiny network of scars there.

The only thought in John’s mind, in those moments, was _No._

It was loud and insistent and he couldn’t, simply _couldn’t_ , sit by while Sherlock crashed to pieces around him. They were too inextricable from one another already. It felt like war, their unit of two holed up in their little fortified area of safety, but even that threatened to explode into chaos at any moment. John had been on the _survivor_ side of too many men already ( _Mann, Stedman, Houston, Garbett, Gould, Keeling, Devlin, Chamberlain, Anderson, Akhtar, Washington, Radford, Bradbury: those he could name without thinking)_ to go through it again, half of him all at once this time.

Duty and responsibility. Yes, John did rather know all about that. So, when he finally decided on what he needed to do, it didn’t feel like a decision at all. It felt like nodding, gravity, a _plan_.

And he did plan it. Planned it thoroughly, in secret (not that he had to work hard to be secretive, these days, with Sherlock vibrating to pieces out of boredom, his thoughts bouncing haphazardly off the walls and never settling anywhere), procured the necessary supplies, tucked them around the flat, put in for two days’ leave from the surgery.

It had worked for Moriarty, after all, and as much as John hated to align himself with him even in something like this, he’d do what needed to be done. John might not be as clever as Moriarty had been, but he had an advantage. He was inside Sherlock’s head. And, as it turned out, the only threat of Moriarty’s that had had a serious effect on Sherlock was also the only one John was willing to make: he’d force Sherlock to risk losing John himself.

It was dangerous and stupid, John knew that, but Sherlock was the smartest man he’d ever known, and surely that would even out somewhere. It was also, frankly, insane, but that category too seemed to have been rendered meaningless by this mad genius who celebrated a near-miss by rubbing his temple with the barrel of a loaded pistol.

After much deliberation, he decided to contact Mycroft. He punched in the text with fingers that didn’t shake at all.

`If you don’t hear from me in two days, your brother will need you.`

The reply came almost immediately: `Be careful.`

 _I hope he will,_ John thought, and his hands were so steady it felt almost like anger.

* * *

 

He’d debated what to put in the syringe for a long time, whether to keep himself conscious or go the easier route.

 _Both or neither_ , he’d finally decided, and in the end it was only the pancuronium bromide. He wouldn’t leave Sherlock alone in it, if it all went wrong, no more alone than he had to be (though Sherlock would feel alone, surely, and the company would be temporary at best). No easy-but-uncertain oblivion for him; whatever happened, John would know it.

It might be the cruellest thing he’d ever done. At least, this way, it would hurt them both.

John gathered what he needed and closed the door to his room firmly behind him. He’d decided on Sherlock’s bed for this, because it seemed best to take the stairs out of the equation altogether.

He leaned the back of his head against the closed door for a moment and shut his eyes, gathering himself, running through what he wanted to say one last time. Once Sherlock gave him the injection he might have up to four minutes but couldn’t count on more than two, and he wanted to be sure he didn’t leave out anything he needed to say. If he missed anything essential, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

Sherlock was in the living room, plucking distractedly at his violin and staring at the ceiling. John slipped into his bedroom and arranged everything on the bed, smoothing down the quilt and folding the blanket neatly to one side (he’d be hypothermic, or nearly so, soon enough; he hoped the presence of the blanket would be enough for Sherlock to surmise that it might be needed).

John sat on the edge of the bed, holding the syringe in a steady hand, and took a deep breath. “Sherlock,” he said, not exactly calling him but loudly enough that he would hear, low enough that he’d know what it meant.

The sounds of the violin stopped, and John heard a rustle of fabric as Sherlock stood, the faint padding of his bare feet against the floor. Then Sherlock appeared in the doorway, dark curls in enough disarray as to cast shadows on his angular face.

John nodded with his chin. “Here.”

Then Sherlock was kneeling at his side, head bowed, waiting. John reached out to put a hand in his hair and it was all he could do not to dig his fingers in, twisting and pulling, because there had to be another way to do this, some alternative to what John was about to do to them both.

“I’ve set you a puzzle,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “You’re going to play a game.” Sherlock raised his eyes, regarding John coolly, but didn’t speak. “There’s a prize.”

“What prize?” He sounded, if not precisely interested, at least as though he were considering becoming so. Sherlock’s eyes were locked on the syringe in John’s lap. _Oh, God,_ John realised, _he thinks--_

John pinched his lips into a thin line. “You’ll know that soon enough.” Sherlock’s cheek twitched but he didn’t look at John, which was a blessing, really. It made the next bit easier to say. “I need you, Sherlock, to… be here. Really here.”

That did get a look, a sharp glance upward, pale eyes flashing under drawn-together brows.

John smiled a bit. He sounded bloody melancholy, even to his own ears, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do about that. “We need each other, I think, and I’m not sure you realise how— well. We’re going to prove it today.” He raised the syringe, the needle glinting slightly. “With this.”

“What’s in it?” Sherlock asked warily.

“You’ll find out,” John said, “after you give it to me.”

Sherlock sat back on his heels, eyes narrowed, and took two long, thoughtful breaths. “John, I—“

“It’s not a _request,_ Sherlock.” John said firmly. He rolled up his sleeve to the elbow and held out the syringe. Sherlock took it and John kept his arm out, offering it. “It’s a game. A game I really hope you win.” Sherlock sucked in a breath and bit his lip, then reached out to position the end of the needle against John’s vein.

“Wait,” John said, and Sherlock froze, fingers gripping tightly enough that his nails whitened, the point of the needle just barely scraping against the surface of John’s skin. “Once you— you’re going to need to listen. _Really_ listen. Don’t interrupt. Can you do that?” At Sherlock’s jerky nod, John tried to smile. “Good. _Now_ , then.”

The needle slipped through the barrier of his skin into his vein, and John fought back a moment of panic, his survival instinct telling him to pull his arm away, to _run._

He held himself still.

As soon as Sherlock withdrew the needle, John grabbed his shoulder. “Right. Now _listen,_ Sherlock. What you’ve just given me is a paralytic. It affects skeletal muscles, including the lungs, but not the heart or brain. So I’ll be… with you.” Sherlock turned his head slightly to the side, a tightening at the corners of his mouth and eyes. John felt a sudden pang at the thought that it might be the last expression he’d see on Sherlock’s face, this fear disguised, by long habit, as contempt.

“Three hours at most, Sherlock, that’s all. Less if we’re lucky. It’s a puzzle, something you have to find. There are hints and… a solution that will bring me out of it altogether.” Sherlock’s muscles gave a jump and John thought he was likely fighting the urge to run off immediately, turn over the contents of the flat. “ _Listen_. Not in my bedroom, so don’t bother with that, though there’s something for you there if this doesn’t— well.” John swallowed. It might have been his imagination, but it felt like his lips were stiffening already. His words felt disjointed. “I won’t be able to blink, so,”—he waved his hand at the medical tape, and Sherlock inhaled sharply—“and I’m going to need. That is, you’ll have to breathe for me. Tell me you understand.”

“ _John.”_

“Tell me.”

“I understand,” Sherlock said, his voice a low whisper.

“Good. _Good_.” John squeezed Sherlock’s shoulder and the other man’s mouth parted on a quick exhalation. “Sherlock, you know I—“

“ _Yes_.” Sherlock hissed out the word and John decided not to waste the time he had left saying things they both knew already. He could feel his control beginning to slip away, his fingers and limbs stiffening. He moved to lie back on the bed and Sherlock was abruptly standing over him, the expression on his face (hesitation, confusion) unfamiliar. His fingers hovered over John’s forehead, his hairline, his neck, not quite making contact.

“Don’t disappoint me,” John said, and it didn’t even sound like his voice anymore, his breathing already too shallow for comfort. He let his eyes slide closed.

* * *

 

It was just this: John on the bed, face slack, the last tiny upward nudge of his ribcage before it stilled. A vignette rendered literally meaningless, Sherlock’s mind seeming to lack any resources for its interpretation.

There was a long moment, the space of perhaps four slow cycles of inhale-exhale, during which his thoughts were a perfect blank.

He hadn’t meant to, but he’d been holding his breath along with John ( _oh,_ but John wasn’t—) and the first twinge in his intercostals snapped him into action.

Fingers under John’s chin to tip it back, nose pinched shut, long slow breaths. Never intended as a long-term measure, of course. _Three minutes_ , he thought. The human body could go three minutes without oxygen. It was possible the drug would extend the window slightly. Couldn’t rely on it, though. Couldn’t be sure.

Sherlock had never been so glad to be an ex-smoker as when he felt the expansion of his own ribcage, the force with which he could expel his breath down John’s throat, watch his chest rise like a bellows.

Second-hand, though. Some of the oxygen sucked out by Sherlock’s own greedy cells; would it make a difference? Undoubtedly. Couldn’t account for it, though. Variables unknown.

He kept it up until he was feeling a bit dizzy. _That’ll be enough,_ he thought (hoped), and practically sprinted from the room.

John had said there would be— what? Something to help him. Something. “Too vague, John,” he muttered, and it wouldn’t do to get angry at the position John had put him in so he didn’t. _Later_. How Sherlock felt about it would still be there, afterward.

 _If it mattered,_ his mind supplied, and Sherlock shut down that line of thought, clenching his teeth. Distracting and unproductive.

So, John had left tools. Clues. Something. Where, though? He turned, looking for obvious signs (disturbances, things shifted from where they’d been that morning) but he couldn’t see anything, but he’d been distracted, wrapped up inside his head—the whole problem, _stupid_ — couldn’t remember how things had been before now that it finally mattered, and—

He’d hesitated too long, had to go back to John. His head was still tipped back and his lips were already dry, and Sherlock tried to use the time to think, but there was something so _wrong_ about this that he could scarcely remember what he was doing, much less think what he should do next.

 _John would know_ , he thought unhelpfully. John _did_ know, of course. Not only because he’d set the whole thing up but because he was trained for this sort of scenario, coolheaded decision-making in a crisis.

Sherlock, well. Sherlock was _not_ , wasn’t trained for much of anything but chemistry ( _of all the useless_ —) and he had this brief absurd thought that he was meant to derive an antidote in one-minute bursts, but no, clearly not.

John’s voice in his head. _Three hours at the most_.

Right, then. All he had to do was wait it out.

Three hours of this? He couldn’t, surely, was already dizzy (irrelevant; he’d do it anyway). John, though. Could John last three hours on second-hand air? He’d be the one to know that too, of course.

John had set this up. He wouldn’t have, if it were impossible, if it were a puzzle without a solution. All Sherlock had to do, then, was find it.

Two more deep exhales into John’s lungs and Sherlock was back in the living room, rifling through drawers in John’s desk. There had to be a starting point, all he had to do was find it, there would be _something_.

He upended the skull, almost laughing at the gesture, and: no. Of course not. An unjustifiable joke, under the circumstances, and John wouldn’t mock him.

Back to his bedroom, his lips against John’s ( _cold already; should they be cold?_ Heartbeat still strong against his fingers, though, when he pressed them to the point under John’s jawline), focusing more on the out than the in. Remembered what John had said and tore off two short strips of tape, pressed them over John’s eyelids so they wouldn’t crack open and dry out, wouldn’t do permanent damage.

Following John’s instructions. Details. Reassuring to have those to focus on.

Another quick foray out, this time to the kitchen. John wouldn’t have hidden anything in the knife drawer but Sherlock looked anyway, wasting time.

He felt warm ( _panic,_ he thought, decided the identification itself was useless, pushed it away), which might be why John seemed so cold, but _Christ_ , John’s lips felt like ice. Fingers, too, when Sherlock put his hand over them. Sherlock had to find a way to slow his own heart rate down. John hadn’t meant for him to panic, but Sherlock had no choice other than to trust him in this ( _don’t disappoint me_ ) and he couldn’t see what it was he was meant to _do_.

He unfolded the blanket, spread it over John’s form, and almost missed the corner of the note sticking out under the edge of the wool. There was John’s scrawled handwriting:

 _You had a lot to say on the subject once, but now it’s all academic. Good thing, too._

Oh. _Oh._ A puzzle, yes, John had said that, and Sherlock was good at puzzles. John knew he wasn’t as clever as Sherlock himself; he wouldn’t mean this to be the real challenge, in any case.

A starting point.

 _Think._

Sherlock took a deep, steadying breath, let it out slowly. Took another, bent at the waist, and gave it to John.

* * *

 

John had meant to stay with Sherlock, he really had, but he found it all but impossible to drag his attention away from the burning agony in his chest. He’d been able to keep his thoughts on Sherlock at the beginning, through those first few rounds of frantic breathing, those warm lips pressed against his and then the slight relief as his chest expanded, the flutter of Sherlock’s mental calculations and the quick beat of his footsteps as he ran to look for the short time—one minute, maybe two—he could spare.

John felt the tightening squeeze of the useless air around him, his own inability to do what he most needed, the pressure mounting and the only reason he wasn’t panicking was that panic was a meaningless non-state in his current condition.

He wanted to be able to remember everything, tell Sherlock howwell he’d done, but his cells were too starved for oxygen, the need for it so deep and fundamental that it seemed to undercut John’s sense of self, sense of place, his chest a hole that could never be filled and this, surely, was the single worst idea he’d _ever had,_ what had he been _thinking,_ he _deserved—_

But those weren’t his thoughts, John realised, though he didn’t precisely disagree; that was Sherlock’s voice.

“— bloody _idiot_ , why would you—“

It hadn’t taken him that long, really, to notice John was cold (not long, but it felt long enough— _finally)_ and find the note John had tucked under the folded blanket.

“ _Really,_ John,” Sherlock said, and without being able to see his face John couldn’t be sure whether that catch in his voice was a laugh or a sob.

 _He sounds tired_ , John thought, and supposed he must be. It was an endurance test for both of them and Sherlock, at least, had to think as well.

Then John lost the voice again, consciousness slipping downward, not extinguished but _subsumed_ , overwhelmed by the fire in his chest, bright flashes of fire bursting against his closed eyelids.

* * *

 

The first note had taken him, eventually, to the bookcase and his own monograph on tobacco, its smoke and ash. _Clever, John_ , and a comfortable joke, a patch tucked between the pages along with the next note.

(Pages themselves: well-thumbed. Sherlock hadn’t read this copy. John, then? Must have been. A surprise.)

From there, just a matter of following the clues, aligning them with what he knew of John’s patterns of thought—a great deal, really— while not allowing himself to delve into any of them too far for risk of missing the window for safe return to John’s side.

Sherlock had lost track of how long he’d been doing this, how many times he’d run back to John, pressed his own lips against those cold ones and tried to give the piece of himself John needed. (John, giving of himself so freely, so easily absorbed into Sherlock’s life.)

 _Don’t disappoint me._

He wouldn’t know it, of course, if Sherlock did, and that thought was almost worse. He could fail, walk away altogether, and John would follow him even in that.

Not with impunity. He’d pressed the plunger home with his own thumb; he’d be taken up on charges (doubtless would have been anyway, those prats down at the Yard finally vindicated). As consequences went, it would be both appropriate and irrelevant. Mycroft would likely stick his nose in and Sherlock would be denied even that.

No choice in it, then.

Though there never had been.

* * *

 

The pressure of hard plastic against his face told John that Sherlock had found the resuscitation bag. He missed the warmth of Sherlock’s mouth—he was frozen despite the blanket, skin prickling with discomfort, unable to shiver—but this was better: steadier, higher oxygen content, no need to deplete the resources Sherlock needed for himself. Sherlock’s own breath had had a ragged edge to it for some time.

John thought he could detect a tremor in the hand holding the mask against his face, but he couldn’t be sure. He wished he had some way to judge how long it had been, how much time might be left. It felt like eternity, but he didn’t think he was the most trustworthy judge at the moment.

A brush of warmth against his forehead—Sherlock’s lips, most likely—and John had a sudden vision of him: one hand working the oxygen reservoir, the other bracing against the top of the bed, head bent down, but he couldn’t picture Sherlock’s face.

 _Hurry up,_ he thought as the press of air down his throat stopped once again. The frantic squirming feeling settled over him and he followed it downward, only faintly hearing Sherlock’s footsteps as he took off running in search of John’s next clue.

Sherlock’s absences were vast empty spaces of time. John had no means by which to judge their duration beyond the pain in his chest, and even that was unpredictable as he slipped in and out of coherence. But this time it really was too long, surely Sherlock should have come back. Everything in John’s body was screaming in helpless panic and he’d never seriously considered that Sherlock might not be able to do it but maybe something had happened, or—

 _I’m going to black out,_ John thought just moments before it happened, _and he might not even know_.

* * *

 

Sherlock’s chest burned. Two minutes away, then at least two at John’s side, and it _hurt_ but it ought to, it had been his own doing after all. John had made him, but John never would have done that if Sherlock didn’t need it, need something, and John had given himself to it unerringly, and more fool he.

It may as well be him, then, on the bed, but it wasn’t. John was offering his body in the service of Sherlock’s brain, demanding the reverse in return, and what he needed was focus. Focus and the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. John’s handwriting. John’s instructions.

 _Play for me,_ it said. Violin, then: obvious. But Sherlock had been out to examine it three times, three cycles of breath pressed into John’s lungs, and he was beginning to doubt his own interpretation.

He had a sudden image of own fingers sliding a scalpel along John’s forearm. Even when the path wasn’t obvious, John trusted Sherlock to find it, to know how to fix the damage he’d done. He never asked Sherlock to do damage he _wouldn’t_ be able to repair, and he had no choice but to believe that the same was true in this case.

In —

 _In this case._

Obvious. Stupid. He hadn’t checked the _case_.

His fingers were shaking slightly as he examined it. The little compartment where he kept his rosin was closed, but there was his rosin on the sofa. _Obvious,_ he berated himself again, _should have seen it immediately_. He twisted the catch and nestled there, its wire curled tight around its base, was the charger to the phone. Not his own, the pink one. He stared at it for a long moment, blinking, wasting time.

Of course. How it had started. _Amazing, extraordinary._ It was in his desk, still, on the off-chance, and Sherlock _had_ been distracted lately if John had had opportunity to meddle with it, but there wasn’t time to indulge in self-recrimination on that account out of all the possible—

He pulled open his desk drawer, fumbled the phone out and nearly ran with it back to the bedroom, plugged the charger in with shaking fingers (more than one way to get those scratches, _always something_ ). The sight of it still gave him an uncomfortable twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach but he shook it off. Mouth over John’s; two more strong exhales as the phone powered on. Three. Four.

The chime sounded immediately. A text from John’s number, one enclosed picture.

How many other games had started just like this? _Play for me. —_ Oh, _John._

The picture was dark and difficult to make out, so it took Sherlock a moment to recognise the red leather, tucked up between the springs of his own mattress.

Under the bed. Under the bed, the whole time. _I’ll kill him_ , Sherlock thought as he reached up to withdraw the case from its accustomed hiding spot. His fingers seemed to belong to someone else as he opened it—as expected, its contents replaced—pried loose the components and finally, with the skill of long practise, retracted the plunger and drew the liquid up into the syringe.

Quick moment of disorientation: an urge to press it into his own arm. _Wrong_. Brief resistance of elastic skin and then the slide of the needle into John’s vein instead.

Still his, then.

The quick welling-up of blood in the wake of the withdrawn needle was the most vivid thing in Sherlock’s world.

Done all he could do, then, he thought, fitting the mask against John’s face for what he hoped was the last time.

* * *

 

John came to awareness with a jolt, heat and pain and the overwhelming feeling that his heart was about to burst. He coughed and tried to roll over on his side but couldn’t quite manage it, his limbs still limp and heavy and not quite yet under his control.

His thoughts would have made him blush, had he been capable of doing so. It was probably a kindness to them both that he was unable to vocalise them.

It was a measure of how far down he’d been, he supposed, that he failed to recognise Sherlock’s hands, tried to swat them away. It was the voice in his ear that finally brought him back to himself, his own name over and over, surrounded by other words that he couldn’t decipher. His first thought was that they’d made it after all, though he couldn’t remember why that was something at which he felt such immense relief. It took his brain perhaps longer than it should have to supply the answer to that.

Oh.

 _Oh._

Right, then.

His body still felt as though it had been lit on fire—all the nerve endings tingling at the surface of his skin—and he couldn’t stop coughing, but he let Sherlock smooth his hair and help him curl on his side. Sherlock was still talking but John couldn’t really make out the words over the roar in his head.

Finally John felt his breathing steady, his head clear. He thought he might be able to organise his arm enough to reach up and grab Sherlock’s hand where its was holding his shoulder; he succeeded on the second try, and the voice in his ear fell silent.

Christ, his throat was dry, but Sherlock had done well and needed to know it, needed to know John was okay enough to acknowledge it.

“You were brilliant,” he managed, only minding a little that it came out as a hoarse whisper. “Thank you.”

Sherlock snorted, and when John squinted over in his direction he saw that Sherlock wasn’t even looking at him, his eyes directed at a spot on the wall behind him.

John let his eyes fall closed and waited, finding it easy to be patient. He was exhausted, still half-floating out of his body, counting his breaths while the frantic prickling of his skin slowly subsided to a thrumming buzz. Thirty-one long, slow cycles of inhale-exhale before Sherlock gave an exasperated sigh and, turning on his heel, stalked from from the room.

John was just beginning to wonder if he’d misjudged, if he ought to follow him ( _try,_ he thought wryly, wondering how long it would be before he trusted his legs to be up the task) when he heard Sherlock’s footsteps returning. Sherlock slid in to sit behind John on the bed and then there was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him up, roughly insistent fingers guiding him to lean back. The muscles of Sherlock’s chest were tense and rigid where John rested against it, and when a glass of water appeared in his field of vision the hand holding it was clenched so tightly that the knuckles stood white against the skin.

“This is what you’re going to do now, is it,” Sherlock said, his voice cold, as John shakily took the glass in both hands and guided it to his mouth. “This is how you’re going to pass the time, I suppose **.** With these _stupid—“_ John felt Sherlock’s sharp intake of breath as he stopped himself, tried again. “You really thought you could come up with something that would—“ Another pause, another intake a breath. “It wasn’t even a _challenge_ ,” Sherlock spit out finally as the detachment in his voice cracked, made room for something like anger **.**

 _Yes it was,_ John thought, and: _it wasn’t meant to be_. He couldn’t decide which truth was more important, though, so he remained silent. He took another sip of water and the muscles of his throat threatened to betray him for a minute, but the spasm passed and he managed another mouthful, gratefully.

“Do you have _any idea—_ ” Sherlock hissed.

“Of course I do.”

“ _Wrong._ You couldn’t possibly, that little brain of yours, if this is the. Well. The _best_ you can do.”

“It’s _because_ I understand,” John said, and his voice at least sounded a bit less scratchy to his ears. It was truth if he’d ever spoken it, and the rough, catching breath told him Sherlock recognised it for what it was.

He could see Sherlock’s hands clenching and unclenching against his thighs at the edge of his vision, weighed the understanding that he was letting John see it against the fact that Sherlock wasn’t digging those same fingers into his shoulder.

It might be all right after all, he decided, though it was apparent that Sherlock had not yet reached the same conclusion.

“If what you want is to _die_ ”—Sherlock hit the word hard, his voice low and dangerous, a challenge— “there are easier ways.”

“If that were what I wanted,” John answered evenly, “I wouldn’t need you at all.”

 _Christ_ , he was tired.

John felt the jolt run through Sherlock’s muscles. He brought his hands up so that his fingers dug painfully into the blades of John’s hips. When he spoke, his breath was hot on John’s ear. “Say it again,” he growled, so close that John could feel the movement of the tiny hairs on his neck.

John breathed, deciding. He’d never much been one for the path of least resistance.

“I wouldn’t need you at all.”

Things seemed to be moving in slow motion. Sherlock’s right hand found John’s hair, pulling his head back, his grip tightening on John’s left hip, leaving bruises that would bloom under the skin for days. The glass bounced off the bed and rolled across the floor, cracking but not quite shattering at the impact. John felt what was left of the water soaking the quilt under his knee at the same moment he felt Sherlock breathe his answer, hot and low and dangerous, against the skin of his cheek.

“You do need me, though. Without me, you’d be _nothing_.”

It both was and wasn’t true, in ways John wasn’t sure even Sherlock fully understood, and John could do nothing but agree.

“ _Yes_ ,” he answered simply, and everything sped up.

Sherlock’s mouth on him was nothing like a kiss, all teeth and harsh need. It felt like being swallowed whole—an odd thought _; hadn’t he been already?_ —his hands on John’s body rough and claiming and it hurt in exactly the way John expected, his skin still too sensitive ( _it was mad, they shouldn’t be doing this, of course they were doing this_ ), his throat burning. It was the easiest thing in the world to relax into it, if only Sherlock knew; John was glad, suddenly, that he didn’t.

John ended on his back with Sherlock stretched over him, one hand squeezing his unscarred shoulder hard enough to leave marks. Sherlock’s mouth moved against the skin of his throat, sometimes biting, sometimes mouthing out words that sounded like _John_ or _mine_ or might not even have been English. When Sherlock moved back so that John could see his face his eyes were dark, holding John’s attention so that he barely even registered the way Sherlock was moving his other hand until he felt the wet warmth of his release spill across his stomach, marking him.

Sherlock rolled to one side and his face, when John looked, was flushed, his hair dishevelled and damp with sweat, and when John reached out an increasingly-steady hand to brush aside one dark curl Sherlock caught his wrist.

“Don’t,” he said, breathless, “just… _don’t_. Not yet,” and John gave a small nod of acknowledgement, too tired to do anything else. What there was left of it was out of his hands now, in any case.

John simply couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He felt the dip of the mattress as Sherlock pushed himself out of the bed and resolved to stay awake until he returned, but was asleep before he finished the thought.

* * *

 

When Sherlock awoke later in the darkness it was to find himself pressed against John’s back, his own long body curled protectively around him, one arm around his waist. His face was so close to the back of John’s neck that he could feel the way his breath stirred the small hairs there.

He lay there for what seemed like a long time, just feeling the press of John’s ribcage against his own, breathing in the smell of his sleeping body. He wanted to do more than that, fold John up inside himself and just keep him there, in the safe secret place between his own lungs.

 _There’s space there,_ he thought, _for John_.

Sherlock hadn’t meant to, or not entirely, but he found himself moving against John, felt himself stirring. He wanted to consume John and give him something, both at once, and settled for the second one; he wanted a reaction, and _that_ he knew how to get, the movement of his hand over John’s skin rewarding him with a soft sigh and a subtle shift back against him.

It didn’t take long, in the darkness, the sure movements of Sherlock’s hands making John gasp and shudder, making his own breath come ragged against John’s neck. After he finished coming down John tried to turn to face him, his intent clear (Sherlock’s own want making itself known), but Sherlock had never been less interested in his own body than he was in that moment, not with his marvel of perfect engineering (heart-lungs-brain) pressed against him, wrapped up in his limbs.

“ _Shh_ ,” Sherlock breathed, and it’s the only word either of them have spoken. John gave a contented sigh and it was only a few breaths later when Sherlock felt his limbs slacken in sleep.

* * *

 

Sherlock hadn’t meant for John to wake up in an empty bed.

He didn’t realise how much time had passed until he heard the sounds of movement downstairs, running water and the bang of metal against metal as John filled the kettle. He willed himself to get off the bed, to go down to the kitchen and make the tea he’d intended to make, a too-small conciliatory gesture in the face of everything but at least it was _something,_ at least it was—

Sherlock didn’t move. He sat, as he’d been sitting for hours, on the edge of John’s neatly-made bed, the sealed envelope pinched between two fingers. He could feel the fibres of the paper itself, catching minutely against the rough skin of his fingertips, and tried to convince himself to rip the flap open and read the words inside before he lost his chance.

He had to know.

He didn’t want to know.

John appeared at the doorway, wrapped in Sherlock’s own dressing gown ( _obvious, his own clothes soiled; he’d have had to come up here to get fresh ones_ ), holding two mugs of tea.

“Morning,” he said, setting one of them on the edge of the nightstand and taking a sip from the other. _Voice a bit rough, moving stiffly, not favouring his leg._ All told, then, could be worse. (Worse, indeed.)

Sherlock found he still couldn’t move. It was all he could do to tear his eyes away from the paper clutched in his hand, to follow John’s movements with his eyes as he opened drawers, pulled out pants and trousers, stepped into them. He had difficulty doing up the buttons on his shirt— _stiff fingers_ —so he left it open.

Sherlock thought, _I’ll do it for him,_ and didn’t. If he moved, the hot, tight feeling in his throat would spring up and out of the space to which he’d managed to contain it over the last several hours. _John._ But John was all right, he was—

“Here,” John said quietly, setting the dressing gown around his shoulders and Sherlock realised he was still naked, gooseflesh standing on his limbs. He might have been shivering. Easier to think of it as shivering, in any case.

He let John pull the paper from his fingers, set it aside. “You didn’t read it,” he said, narrowing his eyes slightly in Sherlock’s direction. _He looks tired,_ Sherlock thought, _I never should have—_

“No,” Sherlock heard himself answer. It didn’t sound like his voice and he drew his knees in. “I couldn’t.”

“It’s not important,” John said kindly, taking the mug from the desk and pressing it into Sherlock’s hand. He took a sip automatically—just a bit too sweet, the way he always made it.

John settled beside him on the bed, laid one hand between Sherlock’s shoulders, and Sherlock thought he ought to move it— _it was backward this way, all wrong—_ and didn’t.

“Of course it’s important,” he snapped, “and you look bloody awful.” He did, too, eyes dark-circled and bloodshot, bruises and bite marks covering what was visible of his neck and torso.

“It’s not,” John said again, ignoring the rest of it. “I knew you wouldn’t read it.”

Sherlock took a long inhale through his nose, considering. A few hours ago his head had been buzzing with words, but now he found he didn’t know quite what to say. He ran his hands over the handle of the mug. His mind jumped around the room, skittering across observations it had made a thousand times already during that long night. Clean and neat, everything put away. The room of someone preparing to leave.

The corner of John’s bedspread was fraying.

“What’s in it?” he asked, because maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to know, if he could hear it from John’s own mouth.

John shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. I knew it wouldn’t.” He shifted, easing a band of tightness across his shoulders, playing it off as a shrug. “Maybe someday.”

 _No._ Sherlock knew it, was as sure of it as he’d ever been sure of anything in his life; if it was information for _after_ , it was irrelevant.

“Bit of a risk,” Sherlock said finally.

“Not at all. I _do_ know you.”

Problem and solution all in one, that was, and John was an idiot not to see it. _He sees it too clearly_ , Sherlock’s mind countered, and he huffed something that probably sounded more like a laugh than he meant. “The heart of the issue right there. You _do_ , don’t you.”

“Mmm.” John took a sip of his tea. “Cuts both ways, though, doesn’t it?”

It did, too, and Sherlock wasn’t quite sure how it had happened but his hands were on John again, pulling him sideways and down onto the bed. John managed to scramble his mug onto the nightstand before its contents spilled over them both ( _good man_ ), and they ended forehead to forehead on top of John’s quilt, breathing the same air. But John was— oh, _Christ,_ John was _laughing._

“What—“

“You need to be careful,” John managed between giggles, and Sherlock felt the beginning of a sympathetic quiver in his own belly, a hysterical release of tension ready to shake him to pieces. “We’ll get _burned._ ”

Laughing seemed like just the thing. When their stomachs were too sore to continue they crawled under the quilt and curled together, Sherlock’s exhaustion hitting him like a wave.

“I’m going to need you to pry me out of this bed with a crowbar,” John said against Sherlock’s shoulder, and Sherlock mumbled something in response about leaving his crowbar in his other dressing gown; he wasn’t sure what he meant, himself, except that there was no way either of them were going anywhere in the immediate future if he had anything to do with it.

* * *

 

John woke up to an empty bed once again. His own, this time, which as either better or worse, depending.

Apart from a dry mouth and some remarkably sore muscles, he didn’t feel too bad, he decided. He rolled his head to one side experimentally and decided his neck was too sore to repeat _that_ particular movement any time soon. Could be better, then, but it could also have been a great deal worse.

John closed his eyes, losing himself in the pleasant pain of a stretch. He thought about the loosening-up potential of the various supplies in his kit downstairs. _A hot bath, definitely_ , he decided. _And breakfast_.His stomach growled, reminding him how long it had been since he’d last put anything solid in it.

A clatter from downstairs. Sherlock was talking on his mobile. “Right, I’ll be right there,” John heard him say.

 _A case?_ John wondered if he’d just gone through all this for nothing. He groaned.

There was the sound of Sherlock’s feet on the stair and his face appeared at the door frame. “Ten minutes,” Sherlock said, the corner of his mouth quirking upward. “FIfteen at the most.”

John blinked at him, bleary-eyed, desperately clinging to the illusion that a warm soak and hot food were in his foreseeable future.

Sherlock ran his eye up and down John’s body, giving him a long, appraising look. “Ours have all gone off,” he said, as though to himself, and disappeared again.

“Ten minutes until _what_?” John called after him, bewildered, knowing it was a futile question even as he asked it.

The envelope was still lying where it had fallen on the floor. John picked it up, tearing it to pieces which he stuffed into the pocket of his pyjamas. He’d flush them later.

 _Bugger it,_ he thought, laying back against the pillow and closing his eyes, his brain still foggy with sleep. He was going to have his breakfast _and_ his bath if it killed him. He was just going to stay right where he was, then, until he had a damn good reason to move.

He must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing he heard was Sherlock’s insistent voice, saying his name. “John. _John._ ”

He opened his eyes to see Sherlock standing over him with a plate of— bloody hell, were those _—_ “Eggs,” he said stupidly, pressing himself to a seated position and leaning back against the headboard.

Sherlock smirked at him.

“Thought you were probably hungry,” he said. “Don’t worry, they’re from Mrs. Hudson.” He held the plate out and John took it in hands that ought to have felt numb with shock but weren’t, were in fact perfectly normal and steady.

 _Would it always be like this?_ John wondered, provoking villains and manufacturing crises, any means necessary to stave off boredom until something finally— _finally_ —got the better of them? Because they (not just Sherlock, _they,_ in it together) needed it? Until they were old and grey, and— what, retired to the country? John couldn’t see it, not at all.

The pipes gave a loud squeal and Sherlock made a move toward the door. “Hurry up and eat,” he said, “or your bath will get cold,” and then he was gone, quick footsteps skimming down the stairs. A moment later he heard the squeak of the taps as he shut them off.

No, what John could see was this, as he settled back against the headboard, feeling the warm weight of the plate in his palm: that they had both been there, in that moment, that it had _worked_.

For a while, at least. For now.


End file.
